The Tatar ‘Ulama’ on the Features of Fasting Among the Muslims of Volga Region and North of It: Past and Present

Abstract

Islam, which originated in the Arabian Peninsula, spread up to the Atlantic Ocean in the West, up to India in the East and up to and across the Middle Volga region in the North. The details of the Islamic law and, more precisely, the features of worship in each regional case depended on the features of the nature and climate resp. on the circumstances of the economy as well as on the ethnic resp. cultural customs and traditions. The practice of Islamic worship in the northernmost region of Pax Islamica, i. e. in the Volga-Kama region, also supposed important questions to resolve. The Muslim legal thought should deal with the other length of day and night in comparison to the Middle East. Short nights and long days in summer, a large number of cloudy days in the Volga-Ural region have led theologians to seek ways to determine the time of beginning of fasting period and the month of Ramadan especially for this land. In particular, Sh. Marjani and M. Bigeev have paid their attention to this theme. The paper examines namely these attempts to adapt the rules of worship to the diversity of natural zones.